My Dad's Secrets, Part 1

I've written about my Dad before, but there is a lot more
I've wanted to write about him.
It's hard to write about a lot of stuff. It hurts. And yet that's probably
when I'm writing my absolute best. Is that the way it is for everyone?
Probably so.

My Dad is about 5-9, not a tall guy. He's second generation Scottish-Irish,
has the brogue coupled with a Boston type accent. He's not actually from
Boston, but IS from Mass. He sounds tough even though he doesn't mean to,
it's not a put-on or an act.
He's quiet, not tall, but something about him exudes a toughness, and he seems a lot taller than he is. My brother and I
witnessed certain things when we were kids, living in Long Beach and rough places.
I've literally seen pimps, not kidding, be afraid of my Dad. I AM using the word literally
here, it applies. The 70's, the era of Shaft. Pimps with big fuzzy blue hats, hanging out
near our house.
But I digress...

My Dad was quiet, but he had a drinking problem. When he drank, he'd become jovial,
and come in and say things like " Aw, I love you, you be a good girl, mind yer Mum."
Then he'd call his own Mum, long distance. My Nana.
Most of the time he was a sweet and happy drunk, but every once in awhile he'd get surly.
Sarcastic and mean. But he never hit us, or got sexual or anything. I've
had girls tell me about their own experiences with their alcoholic fathers, and they
weren't so lucky.
So my Dad was a drunk, basically. A cliche, an Irish drunk. From a family of 12 siblings,
all Catholic, Irish, and alcoholic. From back east.
BTW, my Nana was funny, she was from Edinburgh and had a heavy brogue. Used to tell
us ghost stories about the "old country" that would scare the hell out of us.

My Dad wasn't always drunk, though. Mostly late at night, and sometimes he would quit drinking for periods of time. Weeks, months. So we did have some quality time with him.
He could be funny and sweet and smart. I love my parents sense of humor. They're crazy.
It's something that I recognize the older I get, how wonderful and unique my parents were.
My brother and I got our sick and twisted sense of humor from our parents.

I love how they didn't censor what we read when we were kids. I love how my parents had ideas about things, were independent thinkers. I wonder if my brother remembers that they
once took us to various churches to learn about different religions?

We've never been baptized, my mother believed that it should be my choice if I wanted to be baptized or not. She grew up Baptist. Used to be a Sunday School teacher.
I appreciate that she left that up to me. I'm STILL not baptized. But it makes me wonder what sort of personal religious revelations occurred for my mom to put her foot down on that issue,
to the rest of the family ( Baptists).
Ooops, back to my original subject...

So even though my Dad drank, we had some good times, good experiences. He was in the Navy,
at that time.
Once, when we all watched the documentary "Woodstock" together, I asked my Dad if he'd been in Vietnam. I was about 13, 14. He said no, that he'd had an office job here in the states.
He even had us half- believing since earliest childhood that he didn't know how to swim. He'd said that he'd never learned, even though we knew that he worked on a destroyer ship. He was
always going to the most dangerous places. Spent a lot of time in Beirut, Lebanon in the 70's and 80s.

We knew the " Daddy doesn't know how to swim" story was crap. Actually, "Crap" was probably my Dad's favorite word. That, "Goddammit", and "Jesus Christ." And then in the fall of 1979, my Daddy got a new word. We had moved to Florida,
very briefly. We were only there for a couple of months. We were all miserable. We hated Florida, we'd had to leave all our friends and school in Los Angeles.
But it turned out that my parents were unhappy, too. So in the fall of 1979, my Dad stood
at the window in the living room and looked out. He looked sad and tired. He sighed, and then said " This place sucks."
We were so shocked! My mom, my brother, myself, we couldn't believe it! He'd actually
said the word "sucks"! We all laughed, and suddenly things felt better. And my Dad put in for an emergency transfer right after that, something he'd never done before.

But to get back to the point of my story: My Dad was kind of a mystery.

One time when I was about 15, 16, I was dusting the living room, and I came across some
things that my Dad had accidentally left out on an end- table. He'd emptied his pockets onto
the end table and left them there. Coins and a comb, etc.
But there were two little thin pocket-sized books, soft and worn, creased, from being in his pockets.
I was REALLY curious (Aren't we all curious about our fathers?).
Because it was clear that they meant something to him, he apparently carried these around
every single day!
One book was a journal, he made work- related notes in it. I was feeling very nosy
and guilty, but I turned the pages and read a funny little entry he'd made, a story about discovering a bunch of stoned sailors in the barracks.
The other tiny book was entitled "Emerson's Essays." This meant nothing to me, except that
I really liked the idea of my Dad carrying around a book of poems. It made me feel closer to him. I never forgot it. It was like learning a secret. My Dad likes poetry, and he likes to write.
I didn't know about the other secret that it told, not then.